Sometimes you just have one of those days.

You know those days? When the sky seems to be falling and you wish you could find some space to breathe, when even a second to breathe in peace is fleeting.

It’s been a hectic month for me. I sold my house, lived on a couch for two weeks (in a house with ten people, six of them kids) and bought a new one. I moved 45 minutes away, canceled three workshops in Denver, lived without internet and a fridge for 8 days and am in the midst of preparing for my upcoming teacher training (38 pages of the manual written, about 40 to go…).  I have commitments that I can’t pass off, deadlines I can’t meet and three sons that need…well need constantly. I haven’t stepped on my yoga mat in over a month. There just isn’t time enough for anything more than what I’m doing already.

But today, well today just takes the cake.

It’s always difficult to move children from one school to another. There’s so much transition that happens, from the new house, to new friends, to new curriculums. My son has been faking an illness for three days. It was only today that I realized it is because he is feeling lost in the new curriculum at school. He is already a wiggly child, sociable and amiable, but wiggly. Throw in a new environment and new subject matter he is not familiar with and you have a full blown attention deficit problem going on.

So I make promises to the school that we will give ye’ old pep talk at home and trot off to pick him up. I pull up to the school, load him in and then…

Blood curdling screams from the back seat.

Two fingers smashed in the car door. Two fingernails snapped off at the cuticle. The screaming goes on and on. And on.

Homework be damned, how can he do homework when he can’t hold a pencil?  It’s all I can do to get some ice and set up a movie and hope the crying will stop sometime soon.

Meanwhile, the baby is secretly using a yogurt cup to drain the toilet of all its water and dump it on the floor. The dog is covered in yogurt. I’m pretty sure the baby drank some toilet water. Get some towels.

I look at my eldest son and ask “Why??”

He says, “I know! You’re the only one who gets me mom.”

“Let’s run to Mexico,” I say.

“Or how about Japan? They have sushi there.” He suggests.

Then my dear, sweet boy drops a glass in the kitchen. Baby standing in a pile of glass. That makes three out of three. Clean it up, what else can you do? So I deposit the baby in the livingroom and he promptly climbs, and falls off of, the couch, landing on his head on the hardwood floor. The dog was then found eating pizza covered glass shards out of the garbage.

I wish I could do some yoga right now. Escape, breathe. I wish I could be writing to you about how calm and centered I am and about the yoga of parenting, like I have before.

But today? Today I ordered pizza, handed the remote control to the kids and poured a nice, big, cold gin and tonic. Somedays are like that. So today, gin. Tomorrow, I’ll finally get off to yoga. Because dear god, tomorrow at least won’t be today.